Louisiana voters weighed in on Congressional representation, candidates for Secretary of State, and six constitutional amendments.
Louisiana Incumbents Keep Their U.S. House Seats
There will be no changes to Louisiana’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives next year, as all six incumbents have been re-elected by wide margins.
While his party lost control of the House, Rep. Steve Scalise - the third highest ranking GOP member of the House - won a seventh term representing Louisiana’s 1st district. Scalise beat out five challengers, with 71% of the vote.
The state’s lone democrat in Congress, Rep. Cedric Richmond, defeated three opponents without party affiliation to hold onto his 2nd district seat for a fifth term. Richmond serves as the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
And Baton Rouge Republican Garret Graves won his third term as representative of the 6th district, with 69% of the vote. Graves played a leading role in getting Congress to change the so-called "duplication of benefits" clause that impacted homeowners recovering from the 2016 floods.
Representatives Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson, and Ralph Abraham also won re-election in Louisiana's 3rd, 4th and 5th districts, respectively.
Secretary of State Race Goes To A Runoff
Nine candidates in the secretary of state’s race have been whittled down to just two. Republican Kyle Ardoin & Democrat Gwen Collins-Greenup will head to a runoff election on December 8th. Ardoin has served as acting Secretary of State since Tom Schedler resigned earlier this year amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Collins-Greenup is a lawyer and notary from Clinton, LA - she advances to the runoff in an upset victory over Renee Fontenot Free, the other Democrat in the race.
Louisiana Approves All Six Constitutional Amendments
There were six proposals to change the state Constitution, and voters approved them all:
- Felons will have to wait five years after serving their sentence before they can run for office
- Juries in Louisiana will have to reach unanimous verdicts in all felony cases after January 1, 2019
- Local governments can share public equipment and personnel if they have a written agreement without needing compensation
- Money from Louisiana's Transportation Trust Fund cannot be allocated to State Police; the money can only be used on infrastructure
- Special property tax assessments for homes placed in trust will be extended for the elderly, disabled veterans and surviving spouses of people in the military, law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians who die in the line of duty
- Require a four-year phase-in of higher property taxes when a tax assessor's reassessment increases a home's value by more than 50%
